Causation in Ibn Khaldun's thought

Abstract

Ibn Khaldun's monumental and highly original intellectual achievement has deservedly received - and continues to receive - much international scholarly attention especially since the rediscovery in Europe of his magnum opus, The Muqaddimah, in the nineteenth century. It seems however that most of the numerous - and apparently ever growing - studies in question have been primarily focused on the examination and evaluation of lbn Khaldun's findings and views on human civilization as such, or on the various aspects thereof: economic, political, social, cultural, educational etc. - rather than on the underlying ontology and theory of causation on which the entire architecture of Khaldunian thought is built.